Payback
by Timothy D
Summary: After a morning of pranks from Luan, Lincoln is pushed over the edge and decides to take revenge. Unfortunately he goes a little too far in his payback and has to make up for his mistake.


**Alright, so this fanfic was inspired by a piece of art that your truly saw of Luan getting humiliated (the cover art for this story in fact). When I saw the description under said art, it gave me a bit of inspiration and I figured I could write something of a continuation/ expand on the story. Taking a cue from my friend, Cresh's, book, your old pal Raven decided to turn a generally sad picture into a happier fanfic. This is the result and I hope you enjoy.**

Saturday, the day that everyone looked forward to. Whether you're a working class adult joyous for the reprieve from a tiresome 9-5, a bigwig executive gracious for the break from monotonous meetings and court hearings over your illegal fracking and money laundering ring, or a kid looking forward to having two full days from school and a break from homework, practically everyone looked forward to the weekend. Being someone who fit into the latter category of aforementioned description, Lincoln was looking the most forward to the weekend and especially Saturday. While Clyde was busy and Lio likely was going to binge on the anime he'd fallen behind on, that didn't mean that Lincoln couldn't have a good time by himself. Upon waking up, Lincoln stretches and yawn before getting out of bed to use the bathroom. The second he walked through the bathroom door, he ended up being drenched by a bucket of water, causing him to yell. He didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who was behind this.

"UGH!" He grunted. "Seriously, Luan?"

"Eh, _wetsup_ doc, looks like you _pailed_ to avoid that gag," Luan joked, giggling and asking "Get it?"

As Luan happily skipped away, Lincoln tried shaking himself dry as he picked himself off the floor, grunting all the while.

"Does she have to start off every morning with a joke or prank?" Lincoln groaned. "Would it kill her to just wake up normal like a regular teenage girl?"

"Relax Linc," Lio said, handing Lincoln a towel so that he could dry off, "you know how excited お姉ちゃん gets when she has a performance ahead of her."

"Luan has a performance today?" Lincoln asked.

"Yeah," Lio informed him, "apparently it's at the Buzz n Run cafe. The crowd is notorious for being absolutely brutal when it comes to its performing artists."

"Oh Great," Lincoln muttered, rolling his eyes as he had flashbacks to the lead up to Luan's performance at the Chortle Portal, "that means we're going to have to deal with an onslaught of "jokes" for the rest of the day, right?"

"Try to cut her some slack, 兄さん," Lio said, "She's really nervous about how her act's gonna go. Even though this isn't a make or break situation, like I said, the audience she's performing for is ruthless."

"I'll do my best," Lincoln said, "I just hope she doesn't go overboard with the jokes."

"I'm sure she won't," Lio said, walking out of the bathroom. A few seconds later, Lincoln heard the snap of a mouse trap followed by Lio yelling "くそ!" and tumbling down the stairs.

"Or, I guess she will," Lincoln said, sighing before resuming his business.

Much to Lincoln's surprise, for most of the morning, Luan did indeed dial back on the jokes and puns. Maybe Lio had been right after all, maybe it really was just nervousness driving Luan. Whatever the case was, after a morning that consisted mostly of reading his comics in his underwear, Lincoln was in need of some nourishment by the time that noon rolled around. Looking to satisfy his hunger, Lincoln scrolled into the kitchen to make himself a tasty peanut butter sandwich. After getting out the bread and spreading the peanut butter, Lincoln looked away for a split second to put the peanut butter away. When he turned back around, he took a huge bite out of his sandwich, only to feel something slimy squirming around in his mouth.

Lincoln quickly spit out his the bite he took and exclaimed "What the heck‽" before he removed the top piece of bread to find a group of worms slithering around in his peanut butter.

Disgusted, Lincoln quickly tossed away his sandwich and began scrubbing his tongue before he heard a cheerful cackle.

"Sorry Linc, but you know what they say," Luan said, "the early bird _catches_ _the_ _worm_" this was followed up by another cackle and an obligatory "Get it?"

"Disgusting," Lincoln muttered, quite annoyed as he moved to throw his sandwich away, only for Lana to ask "Are you going to finish that?"

Remembering Lana's habit for eating gross stuff, Lincoln had no problem giving her his ruined lunch, passing the sandwich to Lana and quipping "Bon Appetit"

Although he was annoyed, Lincoln did his best to try and ignore Luan's antics. It was nothing he hadn't dealt with before. By his own admission, he should've been used to it by now, but for some reason, Lincoln always found Luan's activities to be the most annoying. Still, Lincoln tried to heed Lio's advice and not take Luan's jokes too seriously. After making himself a (worm free) peanut butter sandwich, Lincoln decided to try and take the edge off by playing some video games. Grabbing his VR headset, Lincoln decided that it was time to slay some zombies with killer breakdancing. Not long after booting up the game, Lincoln was hitting his stride, killing zombies left and right with his sick moves and even coming close to beating his personal record. Of course, the downside to VR video games is that if you don't pay attention to your surroundings, it's rather easy to tune out the world around you and that in turn, makes it easy for someone to sneak up on you. Which is precisely what Luan did to him.

As Lincoln was breakdancing, Luan creeped up behind him and whispered "Boo!" in his ear, causing Lincoln to jump in fright. In the process, Lincoln also accidentally knocked off his own headset, sending it violently tumbling down the stairs until it landed at the bottom with a sickening crunch.

"No!" Lincoln yelled when he reached the bottom of the stairs, only to find his headset broken beyond repair. "You've got to be kidding me, not again!"

In his head, Lincoln could just hear Luan laughing at him with that annoying energetic laugh of hers. The sound played in his head on loop as he imagined multiple Luans surrounding him and laughing at his misfortune. Lincoln's anger started to grow until his blood was almost boiling from his fury. This time, Luan had gone way too far and it was time to confront her about it. Picking up his broken headset, Lincoln stormed up the stairs and practically kicked open the door to Luna and Luan's room, looking for the jester. Instead, he found Luna tuning her guitar and looking at him confused.

"Dude, chill out," Luna told him, "what gives?"

"Where's Luan‽" Lincoln demanded you know, still absolutely furious at what had just taken place.

"She just left a little while ago headed to the Buzz n Run cafe," Luna said with a sigh, "Why do you ask?"

"Because…" Lincoln said, holding up his broken headset, "she made me break my fucking game!"

"Oh…" Luna said, looking away awkwardly, "that's pretty serious."

"Yeah, it is," Lincoln said, "which is why I'm going to give her a piece of my mind when I see her!"

With that, Lincoln stormed out of the house to find and confront Luan. On his way out the door, Lincoln noticed that the garbage men hadn't been around to pick up the trash yet, leaving the garbage can filled with moldy, putrid, rotten garbage. With anger overtaking him, Lincoln wasn't exactly thinking rationally and at that moment, an awful diabolical idea started to form in his head. As an evil smile spread across his face, Lincoln took the pail that Luan had used earlier that morning and filled it to the brim with the most disgusting, awful smelling trash he could collect before getting on his bicycle and riding to the Buzz n Run cafe. Lincoln was hoping that he could make it there before Luan so that he'd have time to set up his revenge before her performance.

There was a voice in the back of Lincoln's head telling him that perhaps this wasn't the best idea and advising him to rethink what he was doing, but Lincoln pushed that thought out of his head. The only thing he had on his mind right now was revenge. Utilizing several shortcuts, Lincoln was able to make it to the cafe a good ten minutes before Luan, giving him plenty of time to get set up. Taking a moment to admire his handiwork, Lincoln could only chuckle at the thought of his satisfying payback. All that was left to do was hide behind the curtain and get a front row seat to what was about to transpire.

Luan arrived shortly afterwards and took a few minutes to get warmed up before her performance. From the moment she entered the cafe, Luan noticed that the crowd consisted almost entirely of scowls. These people didn't seem like the type who were here to be entertained, they seemed like the type who were here to boo, hiss and jeer. Luan's nerves started to get to her and for a second she thought about reconsidering and calling it a night, but a good comedian never backs down from a crowd and Luan was no different. Taking the mic, Luan quickly began her routine.

"Ladies Gentlemen, the Buzz n Run proudly presents the one, the only, Luan Loud," Luan introduced herself, "and I can assure you that after this performance, you'll certainly be _buzzing_ and _running_ to tell your friends all about it."

Aside from silence and a few glares, Luan got no response, causing her to quickly segue into her routine.

"You know, I don't mean to get political," Luan said, "but with the whole Brexit thing going on, I'm sure the European Union is going to have a lot more free space afterwards, 1GB to be precise."

That elicited a few chuckles from the crowd, but it still wasn't eliciting much of a reaction. Most of the audience were staring at Luan with those unamused scowls. Still, Luan tried not to let it bother her. She's only told two jokes so there was still time to win the crowd over. She wasn't going to give up just yet, she had to keep trying.

"So my sister's in a band and she wants to be a huge rockstar," Luan said, "yesterday she found out that Aerosmith followed her on Twitter. Okay, that's not true, but she could still _Dream On_."

Once again, Luan got little to no response, something that surprised Lincoln. He had to admit, her jokes were rather clever so far. Still, that didn't stop him from planning to go forward with his revenge. For the next few minutes, Luan's act went more or less the same, with the audience barely reacting to her jokes. A few folks were even starting to boo at her performance. Despite her best attempts to not let this get to her, Luan was clearly struggling and nervous, a cold sweat trickling down her face. It was getting to a point where she started to flub a few lines to her jokes. This was the perfect setup for Lincoln, not only was his sister bombing, but he'd get a chance to get back at her in grand and spectacular fashion.

"Don't you think she's gone through enough?" That voice in his head tried talking him out of it yet again. "Maybe we should just let karma do the job for us."

For a second time, Lincoln ignored the voice and counted down until the right moment. Seeing that her regular material wasn't exactly landing with the audience, Luan decided to switch things up a bit. It was time to pull out the big guns.

"Alright, how would you folks like a little PG-13 humour?" Luan asked.

She never got the chance to segue into said jokes before she was showered in smelly, moldy garbage from above. It took a moment for Luan to realize what had happened, but once reality set in, she couldn't believe what was happening. Luan started to tear up when the crowd finally gave a response other than indifference and began laughing uproariously. Normally, that would be a comedienne's desired response, but in this case it was clear that the audience was laughing at her rather than with her. As tears escaped her eyes, Luan tried keeping calm and figuring out a way that she could maybe salvage this. Unfortunately, she soon after lost her composure when the culprit revealed themselves.

"What can I say, folks?" Lincoln said to the audience as he stepped out from behind the curtain. "I always knew that my sister was _trashy_."

"L-Lincoln?" Luan asked, sounding close to her breaking point as Lincoln said to the crowd "I guess you can say that she _stinks_," getting even louder laughter from the crowd.

Bombing in front of an audience was bad enough, being humiliated and covered in trash was even worse, but finding out that her brother had intentionally set this up and joking about her embarrassment was what finally caused the walls to break. Luan immediately started sobbing and ran out of the cafe as fast as she could, leaving Lincoln stunned. The audience either didn't notice or they didn't care as they continued laughing hysterically until they could hardly breathe.

"Luan, wait!" Lincoln said, trying to chase after her, only to find that she was long gone. It was only then that Lincoln started to feel a pang of guilt and remorse, realizing that perhaps he had gone a bit too far in his revenge.

That guilt soon started overwhelming him as he walked back home. Sure, Luan had been driving him crazy that morning, but maybe he could've just talked to her like he originally planned instead of embarrassing her like that. Perhaps he should've listened to that voice in his head and let karma take over rather than take things into his own hands. When he made it back home, Lincoln walked up the stairs and slowly made his way to Luna and Luan's room to apologize. However, after what he'd done, Lincoln thought that perhaps Luan wouldn't be wanting to talk to him right now. Instead, Lincoln trudged to his and Lio's room, where he found his twin sketching out manga in his notebook.

"Oh hey Linc, what's up!" Lio greeted him cheerfully before noticing the downer expression on his face. "What's wrong? Why do you look so upset?"

"Lio, I think I made a mistake," Lincoln told him.

"What do you mean?" Lio asked.

"What I mean is that I did a really bad thing today," Lincoln explained.

"What kind of bad thing?" Lio asked.

"Well, you know how you told me not to get too annoyed at Luan's jokes because she was nervous about her performance?" Lincoln asked.

"Yeah…" Lio said, pressing Lincoln to go on.

"Well, after Luan accidentally made me break my game, I kinda got a little mad," Lincoln explained, "I was going to just confront her and call her out on what she did, but when I found out she'd already left to perform, I decided to get revenge."

"I don't like where this is going," Lio said.

"And I don't like what actually happened," Lincoln replied before continuing, "anyway, kn my way out, I noticed the trash guys hadn't come so I scooped up a bucket of trash and made it to the cafe before Luan."

"Oh no," Lio said, starting to get an idea of where this story was headed.

"I know, I know, I should've taken a moment to calm down," Lincoln sighed, internally kicking himself. "I should've thought things through, but I didn't."

"So what did you do?" Lio asked.

"Well, I waited until Luan started performing," Lincoln answered, "the crowd wasn't really giving her reaction and she was kinda bombing so I chose that moment to dump a bunch of garbage on her."

"やれやれ" Lio sighed. "What happened next?"

"Luan was extremely embarrassed and she ran out of the cafe crying," Lincoln told him. "I didn't expect her to react like that and now I feel terrible."

"You dumped trash on her in the middle of her performance while she was already struggling?" Lio asked, just for clarification. "That's pretty cold, 兄さん."

"I was just trying to get back at her for breaking my game," Lincoln tried to defend his actions, even though deep down that there was no justifying what he did, with Lio telling him as much.

"Yeah, but that was an accident," Lio pointed out, "I'm sure if you had just talked to her, she would've gladly replaced your headset and apologized. You, on the other hand, intentionally set out to humiliate her on what was supposed to be a big day for her."

"I know," Lincoln said, "and I feel awful about it."

"Well where is she now?" Lio asked, "It's never too late to apologize."

"What do you mean where is she now?" Lincoln asked. "Didn't she come back home?"

"No," Lio answered, starting to get panicky. "I thought you knew where she was!"

"No!" Lincoln replied before the two came to the same realization.

"Uh-oh!/ Oh shit!" Lincoln and Lio said in stereo before Lio rushed out of the twins' room.

"Come on, there's no time to waste, we've gotta find her!" Lio stated as he sprinted down the stairs. "I'll try texting お姉ちゃん while we look!"

"Where are you two going?" Lori asked as she nearly bumped into a sprinting Lio.

"Can't talk now," Lio said, in full on panic mode as he just narrowly avoided flattening Lori while running at full speed, "Lincoln'll explain everything!"

Lincoln tried to follow, but was stopped by Lori.

"Alright, what's going on?" Lori asked him.

"You see, I may have kind of messed up today," Lincoln said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Messed up how?" Lori asked.

"Oh no," Lincoln muttered before explaining to Lori what he'd explained to Lio.

"You did WHAT‽" Lori yelled as soon as Lincoln finished explaining before quickly calming down. "Look, I get that you were angry, but what you did for Luan was still shitty and doesn't make you any better than she was."

"I know, I know," Lincoln said. "I know I shouldn't have done it, but I wasn't thinking straight."

"You know, this kinda reminds me of a story from when you and Luan were little," Luna said to Lincoln.

"Huh?" Lincoln asked.

"Do you remember when you embarrassed yourself at the kindergarten talent show?" Luna reminded him.

"Yeah…" Lincoln said as that bitter memory came to mind. "I was going to sing a song, but I got stage fright and ended up wetting my pants."

"And do you remember who the first person was to comfort you?" Luna asked.

"It was… Luan," Lincoln said, causing him to really feel bad. "Oh man, I really messed up this time, didn't I?"

"Well, it's not too late to make things right," Lori told him.

"I know," Lincoln said before running out the door. "And I'm going to make things right as soon as possible!"

Meanwhile, at a certain emo's house, Maggie was comforting Luan after she'd showered and been given clean clothes to replace the ones that Lincoln ruined.

"And you're saying your brother did this to you?" Maggie asked, arms wrapped tightly around Luan in a comforting hug.

"Yeah," Luan said with a sniffle as she wiped a tear from her eye before burying her face in Maggie's shoulder. "You know, I did kinda play a few pranks on him." she sniffed again as she felt the urge to start crying again. "Maybe I had it coming."

"Don't even think like that," Maggie told her. "Even if you did play a few practical jokes on him, he had no right to embarrass you like that."

"I dunno," Luan said, sitting up and shrugging. "I can kind of be annoying. I don't blame him for getting fed up with me."

"Yeah," Maggie said, "and I hope you don't blame me when I wring his neck the next time I see him."

"Maggie, please, I-," Luan pleaded before getting a text notification on her cell phone.

"Who is that?" Maggie asked

"It's just my brother," Luan informed her, "he wants to know if I'm alright."

"Your brother has some fucking nerve to-," Maggie started to grow angry again before Luan clarified.

"Not Lincoln," Luan told her, "I mean my other brother."

"Oh, you mean the weeb?" Maggie asked and Luan nodded her head.

Luan sighed and said sadly "I guess I better head home before they start to worry"

"No wait," Maggie said, grabbing Luan's hand, "stay"

"Hmm?" Luan asked.

"I want you to perform your act for me," Maggie told her, "You know, the one your brother ruined."

"Are you sure?" Luan asked, her confidence clearly shaken after that disastrous performance. "I mean, my jokes were kind of bombing and not a lot of people were laughing until, you know…"

"I'm sure," Maggie replied, telling her "Luan, even though that crowd laughed at your humiliation, you're far from a joke. You're acting pretty funny."

"If you insist…" Luan said before she began performing her act.

As mentioned before, she was still very shaken after what happened at the cafe and for the first few jokes, Luan mostly muttered and spoke very quietly, afraid of what Maggie would say. Fortunately, Maggie gave Luan her full support and giggled at her jokes. Slowly, but surely, Luan regained a bit of her confidence and told her jokes with that trademark energetic delivery she was known for. By the end of her performance, Maggie was full on laughing at Luan's jokes. Right afterwards, Luan settled back into being quiet and withdrawn once again until Maggie grabbed her hand.

"Wow, you're really good," Maggie told her. "I don't know why they didn't laugh until Lincoln pranked you."

"I guess," Luan said deadpan. It upset Maggie to see Luan seemingly so down and depressed instead of bubbly and optimistic like she normally was.

Shortly afterwards, there was a knock at the door. Glancing through the peephole, Maggie saw that it was Luan's brothers, Lincoln and Lio.

"Hi Maggie," Lincoln greeted her before he tried asking "is Luan he-," only for Maggie to punch him in the face mid sentence. "Ow." Lincoln muttered, picking himself up "I suppose I had that coming."

"Look, we're sorry for bothering you, we just wanted to know if Luan was here!" Lio said, panicking and shielding his face. "Please don't punch me in the face!"

"No, you're cool," Maggie told him, pointing at Lincoln, "but after what he did, I couldn't let him get away with hurting Giggles."

"So does that mean Luan's here?" Lio asked, relieved that his sister was safe.

"Yes, she's here," Maggie said before shooting Lincoln another death glare. "She was hysterical when she got her though, poor thing."

That just made Lincoln feel even worse about what he'd done.

"Listen, Maggie," Lincoln said, "I need to talk to Luan right now, it's important!"

Maggie huffed and replied "I don't think Giggles wants to talk to you right-,"

"It's okay, Maggie," Luan assured her, "let them in."

Maggie nodded her head and let the twins inside.

Luan turned to Maggie and Lio and said " If you don't mind, Lincoln and I need to talk one on one."

Lio and Maggie shrugged before complying with Luan's wishes and leaving the room.

"Look, Luan, I'm really, really sorry for what I did," Lincoln apologized.

"I owe you an apology too," Luan said, much to Lincoln's confusion. "I'm sorry that I broke your game and for all the jokes I played on you this morning. I know right away that I went too far and I wanted to make it right so I left early so that I could get you this…"

Luan then handed Lincoln a brand new, state of the art, VR headset to replace the one she had broken.

"Luan, I-," Lincoln tried to say, too stunned to know what to say.

"I was really nervous about the show and was trying to hype myself up before I had to perform," Luan explained, "but I ended up making you miserable. I'm sorry."

"Luan, you didn't have to do this," Lincoln said, now feeling even worse.

"You don't have to worry about me pranking you anymore," Luan said.

"You're not giving up comedy, are you?" Lincoln asked, concerned for a repeat of the past.

"No," Luan said, "but I am taking a lengthy break from it."

Hearing that, Lincoln gave her a hug and apologized again "I'm so so sorry! I know I shouldn't have done what I did, but I took it too far again! I wouldn't blame you if you hate me because of th-,"

"Hate you?" Luan asked, "Why would I hate you?"

"I mean, I did make you look stupid in front of a crowd," Lincoln pointed out.

"Yeah, but I've been through worse," Luan told him, "and besides, you're still my brother, I could never actually hate you."

Lincoln looked guilty "So does this mean you forgive me?"

Luan smiled and gave him a hug in return and asked "Does that answer your question?"

The two of them embraced for several seconds before Luan called out to Maggie and Lio "Alright, we're done now."

"So yeah, if you're looking for a dark anime, I'd definitely recommend Hellsing and/or Death Note," Lio told Maggie as the two walked back into the room, "on the manga side, I'd recommend Berserk or Drifters, but the former can be a rather long read."

"Thanks for the heads up," Maggie said before asking Luan "So have you two patched things up?"

"Yep!" Luan said, telling Maggie "Thanks for being there to listen to me."

"Anytime, Giggles," Maggie told her with a smile as Lincoln, Lio and Luan prepared to leave. "You know I'll be here anytime if you need me!"

"Thanks," Luan said, "Are we still on for Friday?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Maggie replied.

"Great, I'll see you then," Luan said, waving goodbye to Maggie as she and her siblings left.

Before they got too far, Lio went back and whispered his gratitude to Maggie.

"Thanks again for being there for お姉ちゃん," Lio told her, "I really appreciate it."

"Like I said, I'd do anything for her," Maggie told him.

"Hey Lio, you coming?" Luan and Lincoln called.

"I'm right behind you!" Lio said, waving goodbye to Maggie before catching up with his siblings.

As they head home, Luan asked "So who wants to hear a joke?"

Although he wasn't the biggest fan of her jokes, Lincoln was still happy to see Luan back to her normal self.


End file.
